


Night Visit

by istia



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Episode: s05e05 Discovered in a Graveyard, Established Relationship, Family, M/M, POV William Bodie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-12
Updated: 2011-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-17 23:30:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/istia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bodie has an unexpected encounter whilst visiting Doyle in hospital after the shooting in DiaG.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Visit

Bodie damned the Old Man's eyes as he checked his watch--past eleven at night--and increased his speed. He'd dropped Jax off at home and was heading not to his own well-deserved bed, but to the hospital. Central had already told him everything was fine, but he wouldn't be able to rest till he'd checked on Doyle himself. Good thing he'd made an effort to charm the night-shift staff a fortnight ago at the beginning of this business; already used to CI5 operatives' odd hours, the current nursing staff was specifically used to Bodie's appearing at all hours of the day and night as he wove visits in and around Cowley's gruelling schedule.

Tonight was later than his usual time, though. Cowley'd sent him and Jax to Brighton to pick up a prisoner of possible interest to a CI5 investigation. He was damned tired, and Cowley expected him in the office bright and early tomorrow; but he wouldn't be able to sleep without seeing Doyle. If he went home to his bed, he'd only wake up in a couple of hours with the sight of Doyle lying on his white carpet, T-shirt soaked red, eyes glazed, the smells of dirt mingling with milk and blood....

He shimmied his shoulders to loosen the tension and turned into the hospital car park, finding a spot near the main doors. Easy parking was one advantage of after-hours visiting.

The fourth floor was quiet except for the muted squeak of rubber-soled shoes on the linoleum. He summoned a warm smile for the sister at the desk, who gave him a nod of permission, then he strode down to the private room Doyle enjoyed, thanks to CI5. Well, partly thanks to security issues surrounding injured agents and partly due to the seriousness of Doyle's original wound. He was well out of the woods, now, but they were keeping a close eye on his heart as he underwent the painful stages of getting back on his feet. Still, Doyle was going to be all right. He knew it; knew Doyle would fight back onto the A-Squad, too.

He just liked to see the day's progress totted up with his own eyes once every twenty-four hours. At least.

Doyle was asleep when he entered the small room. Lying on his back, face turned towards the door, his profile and mess of curls were limned with the light of a muted bedside lamp. A book lay half on his chest; some tattered paperback Bodie picked up and put aside without looking away from Doyle's starkly outlined features. Soft light was kind to Doyle, highlighting his odd, fragile beauty. The flick of a switch, turning a harsher light onto him, could make those same features seem badly put together, rough and edging towards ugly. Only then let the sunlight catch him just right, or the moonlight, or see him in any sort of light at different angles highlighting one of his quixotic expressions, and back he shifted to that elusive beauty again.

Bodie, God help him, liked Doyle in all lights. Doyle's ugly-toad scowls amused him just as much as the illusionary fragility of Doyle's beauty put Bodie on his guard, his heart thumping painfully. Doyle's changeability was one of the attributes that set him apart from the average Joe: face and personality both like quicksilver, never quite the same two minutes running, making watching him never dull and with the underlying appeal of Doyle's rarely being predictable.

Bodie pushed an errant curl away from Doyle's eye with a touch light enough not to disturb him. He felt relaxed now: he'd seen Doyle. That was enough. Doyle breathing, quiet and even; and his face smooth in sleep, no telltale pain lines between his eyes or around them or dragging down the corners of his mouth. Bodie could read those lines like a soothsayer by now; knew each of them and the story they told.

Doyle was having a peaceful night, so that was all right. Bodie could go home and have one, too.

He turned away and paused at seeing a shadow outside the rippled glass window in the door. A nurse doing a check? But rather than someone entering, the shadow just hovered. It seemed to loom, black as a rook, and his heart pounded as tension stiffened his muscles. Cowley had pulled the guard from Doyle's door after Mayli Kuolo died. They'd dismissed the idea of co-conspirators. Bodie'd been as sure as Cowley that she'd acted on her own in going after Doyle for vengeance. She might've seen Doyle as a threat to her main focus on killing Colonel Lin Foh; whatever her reasons, he'd swear she'd acted alone.

But it was late for visitors, himself excepted, and Doyle was unguarded.

Hand slipping inside his jacket to loosen his gun in its holster, he moved stealthily to the door, keeping to the side away from the window. He reached out and took careful hold of the knob, then glanced back at Doyle, who hadn't stirred. Turning the handle slowly, Bodie pulled the door open and stepped into the hallway in the same movement, every sense on alert.

To see only a startled, middle-aged woman, dressed in a dowdy tweed coat with a scarf knotted around her neck, staring at him from a couple of feet away. She had one arm extended, reaching towards the door, which she pulled back at Bodie's precipitate appearance. He quickly pulled his hand off his gun and out of his jacket and adopted a less threatening stance even as he worked on quietening his hammering heart.

"I'm so sorry," she said, in a low voice. "I didn't realise Ray had a visitor. The sister at the desk--" she gestured one gloved hand down the hallway "--said I could look in on him."

"Of course, yes." Bodie straightened, heart finally under control, and looked into startlingly familiar green eyes. He managed a smile. "I'm Bodie, Ray's partner."

Her face lit up in a smile as familiar as her eyes, and his heart set up a quick tattoo again. "Oh, Mr Bodie! Such a pleasure to meet you." Her smile froze for a moment, then she cleared her throat. "I'm Frances Doyle. Ray's mother."

His eyebrow went up, but he gathered himself as she pulled off the glove on her right hand and extended it. He clasped it, feeling large bones and a firm grip. Her mouth had Doyle's lush lips in a face displaying his high cheekbones and square chin to go with the matching eyes. Only her hair was different; similar brown, though frosted with more grey, but with only a hint of wave in its shoulder-length cut, not a curl in sight.

She was speaking in a soft voice, nervous and quick: "I couldn't get down earlier; had the shop to see to, and the only evening train arrives late, I'm afraid. Mr Cowley has been kindly giving me daily reports on Ray's condition, but I did just want to see him for myself."

Bodie smiled while his mind reeled at the idea of Cowley's phoning Doyle's mum every damned day! The old bastard never let on he even knew any of them had family. Bodie'd find it easier to believe Cowley thought all his agents sprang fully formed from his head, armed and ready for action.

He stepped to the side and reached for the doorknob. "He's asleep, but I'm sure he'd be glad to be woken to see you."

"Oh, no." Her large hands clutched her black vinyl handbag. "I wouldn't want to wake him. I'll just take a peek, just to reassure myself."

Bodie didn't feel in a position to argue, so he just smiled again and opened the door for her. As she passed him, he realised she was a smidgen taller than him. He glanced down at her feet, but she was wearing sensible flats. Large feet, he noted idly; another trait Doyle had inherited from her, though his looked even bigger at the end of his long, skinny legs.

She smelt of crisp, night air and clean clothes with a hint of a flowery cologne as she brushed past him in the doorway. Then she was inside and moving quietly to Doyle's bedside.

It took an effort of will, but Bodie managed to pull the door shut and leave her alone with Doyle. She was his mother, for fuck's sake; Doyle was safe as houses with her. Of course he was. Uneasiness raised sweat on the back of his neck and under his arms, and he remained on alert, listening for any sound from within the room that might be out of place. What was he expecting? That she had a gun in that well-worn handbag? A knife hidden in the big pocket of her ugly coat?

Jesus fuck. But he wished, just a little, that he had a way to contact Cowley and ask if he really did talk to this mother of Doyle's every day; if she really was Doyle's mother. Though how Cowley was supposed to know that over the airwaves....

Bodie knew Doyle's mother was alive, so that was something. He'd secretly accessed and read Doyle's file years ago, when their new pairing had pleased the Cow and he'd made it permanent. There was something there, a dim memory; some detail that seemed off that he couldn't remember. An estrangement? Doyle had only ever mentioned his parents in a few off-hand comments over the years. Doyle did go north on visits a few times each year, though.

"Family," was the succinct explanation Doyle gave each time, and Bodie had accepted it, not particularly interested in a group of people he'd likely never meet.

He frowned at the useless window in the door, currently loathing the privacy it offered inside the room as much as he appreciated it when he was on the other side with the door safely shut. He glanced at his watch to keep his twitching fingers from opening the door and intruding.

"His mother," he intoned to himself. "Safe as fucking _houses_."

He tried again to recall the report on Doyle's family, but the details had hazed over the years. The only important issue was the end product, and Doyle, he'd always reckoned, had created himself as much as his family had had a hand in his forming. Doyle had hung on longer at home than Bodie had, he knew, but he'd been a tearaway at some point, rebellion boiling in him wild as his curls. What kind of a mother had she been when Doyle was that nervy kid? She'd failed to hang onto him, if she'd wanted to then. Was she the kind of mother who'd tried to clip his wings, or had she given him a shove out of the nest?

She cared about him enough to visit, though, which was more than his mother ever would. If she was alive.

He glanced at his watch again. Twenty minutes. Tiredness and tension were making his muscles ache. He took a slow, deep breath and leant back against the wall next to the door, consciously relaxing each muscle group in turn. Thirty minutes.

When the door opened, his watch registered the passage of forty-two minutes. He straightened and smiled on auto-pilot, and she met his eyes with another Doyleian smile of her own. Damn. Of course she was Doyle's bleeding mother; it was written in every angle and line of her face.

"He looks well." Her relief cut through her tiredness like a light in a tunnel. "It's so good to see him sleeping pain-free."

"Yeah, he's well on the mend, they tell me. Made quite the recovery in the past couple of weeks."

"Thank you, Mr Bodie. I didn't mean to intrude on your visiting time."

His tension eased, curiously disappearing at the little signs of nervousness she showed in the clutch of her handbag, the set of her square, broad shoulders. He noticed they were like Doyle's, too, and the flutter in his belly entirely died.

"Not at all. I'd already had my visit."

"Oh." Her eyes sharpened, studying him, and he cursed his inattention.

Of course she wasn't stupid; she was Doyle's mother! But if she guessed, as she probably had, that he'd hung about to keep an eye on her, she let it pass after a quick, sharp scrutiny. Her eyes dropped and she pulled her gloves from her pocket and pulled them on.

"Well, it was grand to meet you at last. Good evening."

She turned away with a pleasant nod, but he said, because he couldn't help himself, "Can I give you a lift to the station? What time does your train leave?"

She turned back to him with a thoughtful set to her mouth; Doyle's mouth often looked just like that, and his eyes were just as penetrating.

"Oh, no, I can easily get a cab; I don't want to put you out."

"It's no trouble. Doyle would flay me if I let you go off into the night alone. I'll just be a moment; I think I dropped my keys in Doyle's room."

There! Hah. _That_ 's why he'd hung around, see, not spying, not at all; and now he had the perfect excuse to just nip in and check on Doyle before leaving. He ignored the amused quirk to her damned familiar mouth and pushed quickly inside the room.

He bent over Doyle, who'd turned onto his side. Breathing: check. Peaceful: check. He glanced over his shoulder to be sure the door was closed, gave thanks for the privacy the rippled glass gave him, and bent to brush a kiss against Doyle's temple. He inhaled Doyle's warm, sleepy scent, absorbed the faint taste of salt on Doyle's skin, and put his hand lightly over the pulse in Doyle's neck for a moment. Just a moment was all the reassurance he needed.

He and Doyle's mum didn't speak much on the short trip through quiet streets to King's Cross. She sat neatly in the Capri beside him, as big a figure as Doyle, but less sprawling, handbag in her lap with both hands resting on it, bony knuckles hidden by the brown wool gloves. She looked alertly out the window at the dark scenery passing by, but he could sense her weariness, a match to his own. He reckoned she'd doze while waiting for the train, and doze on the train itself, while he'd be snug in his bed.

When he stopped the car, she gave him a smile so full of warmth he felt choked. "It was so kind of you to go out of your way like this, Mr Bodie. Thank you."

She got out of the car, but he flowed out the other door and looked at her over the roof. "I'm sure Ray'd be glad to see you, if you could make it down again when he's likely to be awake. Perhaps on the weekend? I'll be happy to come pick you up; just let me know ahead of time when your train will arrive. You could leave a message with CI5, or--" he dug out his notebook and flipped to a clean page "--here's my number if you'd like to ring me."

He walked around the car to hand the folded paper to her and watched her finger it. Her smile, bright in the station's lights, faltered for a moment before firming, and her eyes, after a dip, rested on him forthrightly again.

"I would like very much to be able to talk to him a little. I'll consider making another trip. Good night, Mr Bodie."

He murmured a goodbye, then watched her walk away, a tall, dowdy matron in tweed pulling her paisley scarf up over her hair as she walked. Just a working-class mum, like hordes of others, heading home, wherever that was.

But Bodie knew her now, knew her voice and her eyes and the touch of her fingers, and he wouldn't be able to forget.

The niggling sense of mystery about her stayed with him through his sleep, though not enough to keep him awake. Nothing less than Cowley's raising an alarm could've interfered with his sleep once he got home and fell onto his own mattress. Even the lack of Doyle's heat next to him didn't keep him awake long.

:::::::

"Met Doyle's mum last night at the hospital." He dropped it casually into a break after his debrief with Cowley, then a session interrogating their prisoner of interest.

He and Cowley were alone in the office, Cowley having just given him his orders for the rest of the day--light duties, thankfully. He'd be able to visit Doyle in the daylight for once!

Cowley looked at him sharply, then went for the whisky bottle. He poured a glass for each of them, and seated himself behind his desk again.

Only after he'd taken a drink did he speak, in a low, expressionless voice. "Oh, aye."

"Frances Doyle." He kept an eye on Cowley as he spoke, but Cowley was, as usual, as readable as the Sphinx. "Seems like a nice woman. Popped down, flying midnight visit. Didn't want to wake Doyle, though, so she just sat with him for a bit while he slept."

He said the last with faint amusement, as though it were some esoteric trait of mums he couldn't in the least understand; and certainly not as if he'd spent more hours sitting by Doyle's sleeping form than even torture would ever make him admit.

"Aye, well, I imagine she found it reassuring to see him looking comparatively well." Cowley's voice sharpened. "You gave her privacy with him, I hope?"

He was mildly affronted. "Of course I did. Know me place, don't I? Anyway, she didn't look exactly dangerous." Though she did have those broad shoulders and a surprising amount of strength in her big hands.

"Hmmm," was Cowley's comment, and Bodie downed the rest of his whisky and made a quick escape from Cowley's gimlet stare.

Before going to the hospital, he managed to steal a quick look at Doyle's personnel file, refreshing his faded memory.

He arrived to find Doyle sitting up in bed, looking bandaged and pathetic despite his clear eyes and fluffy curls. Either someone'd helped him into the shower or he'd had a very _comprehensive_ bed bath, the lucky old toad. Doyle brightened when Bodie tossed him a new cheap thriller, smiling at the way Doyle's eyes lit up at the lurid cover.

"You spoil me, mate."

Doyle beamed happily up at him, and Bodie manfully restrained himself from leaning down and snatching a kiss. Too much chance of someone coming in during the day; they didn't take stupid risks like that.

"Gotta give you something to shore up your will to live." He contented himself with flicking a finger at a particularly bouncy curl.

Doyle batted him away with a scowl that vanished as quickly as it'd come. He grinned up at Bodie.

"Doctor said he might start thinking about letting me out of here next week; well, late next week--maybe--but still!"

They shared a triumphant grin, then Bodie sat down in the visitor's chair and leaned back, doing his best imitation of Steve McQueen nonchalance.

"Met your mum last night."

Doyle's eyes snapped to his face, wide and startled. "You what?"

"Your mum, Ray. Try to keep up." He leaned forward to knock on Doyle's head, mostly for the fun of Doyle's batting him away again, this time with all the attention of dealing with a fly.

Doyle's eyes narrowed on him. "My mum. Here?"

"Yup. In the flesh. Also a tweed coat and a scarf that looked straight from my mum's wardrobe in the 1950s." He smiled benignly. "She said you'd mentioned me. Doyle, I'm touched!"

"My mum was here, last night. Where the hell was I?"

"Ah, you were snoring your little heart out, mate. I wanted to request ear plugs before I came into the room, but mothers are forgiving sorts. She might even have found it...endearing?"

Doyle grimaced at him. "Why the hell didn't anyone wake me up?"

"She didn't want to disturb you. Just wanted to check you were really living, though it turns out our George has been giving her daily updates on you."

He sat forward as Doyle looked like he might hyperventilate, but relaxed as Doyle grabbed his glass from the bedside cabinet and took several long slurps. He set the glass down and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Cowley." He ran a hand through his curls. "Cowley's been talking to my mother every day?"

"So she said. I tried to verify it with the Cow, but he wasn't in a, well, sharing mood. Anyway, I liked her. Gave her a lift to the station for her train back. She said she couldn't get down earlier because of the shop." He let the last sentence end in a subtle question.

"Yeah." Doyle was plucking absently at his blanket. "She has a little sweetshop in York."

"York? I thought you were from Derby."

Doyle gave him a sharp look. "She moved, after the...divorce."

"So your dad's still in Derby, then?"

Doyle's scowl this time showed no sign of disappearing quickly. "What is this, a visit or an interrogation?"

Bodie considered backing off, then took a breath and smiled, going hell for broke. "It's just I thought your mum's name was Edna, you see, and your dad was Frank."

The silence was Arctic and Doyle's hard eyes didn't waver from his face. Bodie grimaced and gave a pacifying gesture.

"She told me her name was Frances, that's all. She looks just like you except for the curls." He spread his hands again. "I liked her, Ray. She seems very nice. Very...mum-like."

"Bodie...."

"Sorry. It's none of my business. I was just startled when she turned up like that. But I did like her, and I'm glad you've got someone who cares enough to come all this way after a hard day's graft, just to sit and stare at your ugly mug for three-quarters of an hour before slogging all the way back home."

Doyle stayed silent long enough for Bodie to assume he wasn't going to say anything. He was about to get up and leave when Doyle sighed and glanced at the shut door before looking back at Bodie with a shrug.

"Yeah, well, Frankie's always tried to be there for me. Her bloke's a good chap, too; they've been together eleven years or so now. She's all the mother his kid's known; nice kid, helps out in the shop after school. His mother died when he was two and Frankie got together with his dad when the kid was four, so he got lucky, really. Better mother than I had."

Bodie pursed his lips, watching the expressions flitting across Doyle's expressive face: pride, pleasure...fear.

"What happened?" He spoke quietly, trying not to break the hushed mood Doyle had encased them in, poised to shut down if outside ears came close.

Doyle shrugged again. "He was a good father, too, till I was about the kid's age. Then, I don't know, maybe he couldn't stand to go on pretending any longer, or maybe my mum finally managed to drive him away. She did her best to make the house a damned battlefield for all the years I remember. Sometimes I think he hung on as long as he did just for my sake." He sighed, eyes distant. "When he left, I was so fucking angry to be left behind, I took it out on anyone who looked at me slantwise. Not that my mum noticed. She was having too good a time slagging him off to all the neighbours. I finally gave up on it and left to make my own life. By the time I learnt what Frankie'd done, learnt my father was gone and I had a second mother instead, she was already hooked up with her bloke and had a new family."

He gave Bodie a grim smile. "It took a few years to mend fences, but Frankie never gave up trying." He drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. "Anyway. She's happy now, and I've got a decent mum at last."

Doyle laughed, genuine amusement in it, and the last of Bodie's tension drained away.

"Weirder than fiction, eh? Families." Doyle shook his head, then looked at Bodie with challenge in his eyes.

Bodie smiled at him, content and sure. "I suggested she come down on the weekend, if she could manage it; have the dubious treat of seeing you actually awake. Offered to pick her up at the station if she let me know ahead. Maybe you should call her, make the arrangements."

Doyle stared at him, hardness falling away from his face and eyes like water drops, leaving the warmth of a summer's sun behind.

"You're soft as pudding, mate." Doyle shook his head, and Bodie felt obliged to defend his honour with a bout of pretend fisticuffs that left Doyle grinning and clutching his side.

"Right," Bodie said, straightening his leather jacket. He pointed a finger at Doyle. "I'll see you tonight. Get some rest, will you? I don't want to listen to your dulcet snores all evening again."

"Oi, you, I don't snore. Stop telling fibs."

Bodie opened the door and leaned back inside. "We'll ask your mum on the weekend, shall we? Impartial witness!"

Doyle snorted. "After you've had her alone on the drive from the station? There won't be anything impartial about her, you conniving git."

Bodie winked, then ducked out the door as Doyle reached for a grape to throw.

Typical that Doyle's family would turn out to be as convoluted and startling as Doyle himself. Bodie whistled as he jogged down the stairs. Life with Doyle: a surprise around every bloody corner. Just the way he liked it.


End file.
